Who invented the first flashlight?

[lampliter]

power source? emitter? reflector? etc?

Why?

[YuvalS]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashlight#History

[Bort]

@YuvalS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashlight#History

I was expecting there would be someone named Von Flashlight involved

[turkeydance]

First Vonflash Light

[lampliter]

[quote=YuvalS]
<!!
VonWow; thanks; A clip like that to fit AA, AAA ?

[manithree]

TIL:

Early flashlights ran on zinc–carbon batteries, which could not provide a steady electric current and required periodic “rest” to continue functioning. Because these early flashlights also used energy-inefficient carbon-filament bulbs, “resting” occurred at short intervals. Consequently, they could be used only in brief flashes, hence the common North American name “flashlight”.

I had wondered why us yanks called them flashlights.

There are a bunch more cool photos at one of the references in the wikipedia page:

https://web.archive.org/web/20170117012029/http://www.wordcraft.net/flashlight.html

[Oli]

I didn’t read any of it but there’s a clear precedent for turbo. And people who call them torches are referring to a much older technology prior to flashlights as we know them today.

[Oli]

@lampliter

; A clip like that to fit AA, AAA ?

That’s not a clip. It looks like it’s a crude switch with no means to lock it on. You had to hold it. With battery power what it was you only used these in short bursts. That black piece at the front of the switch appears to be a spring to hold the contact “lever” up off of that little tiny brass contact under the back of the lever.

[Lightbringer]

@YuvalS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashlight#History

Flashlights became very popular in China; by the end of the 1930s, 60 companies made flashlights, some selling for as little as one-third the cost of equivalent imported models.